i 


,     "C.-' 

I 


'VK 


OBVIOUS 
ADAMS 

The   story  of  a   successful 
Business     Man  —  by 

ROBERT  R.  UPDEGRAFF 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS 
NEW    YORK    AND     LONDON 


OBVIOUS  ADAMS 


Copyright,   1916,  by  Harper  &   Brothers 

Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

Published  September,  1916 

H-Q 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 


384611 


OBVIOUS  ADAMS 


ALONE  man  sat  at  a  table  by  a 
window  in  the  Dickens  Room 
of  the  Tip  Top  Inn,  Chicago.  He 
had  finished  his  dinner  and  was  ap- 
parently waiting  for  his  black  coffee 
to  be  served. 

Two  men  entered  and  were  shown 
to  a  table  near  by.  Presently  one 
of  them  glanced  at  the  man  by  the 
window. 

"See  that  man  over  there?"  he 
whispered  to  his  companion. 

"Yes,"  said  the  latter,  looking 
disinterestedly  in  the  direction  in- 
dicated. 


;,-:::QByiQ.US   ADAMS 

"Well,  that  is  Obvious  Adams." 

"Is  that  so?"  And  he  almost 
turned  in  his  chair  this  time  to  get 
a  good  look  at  the  most-talked-of 
man  in  the  advertising  business. 
"  Ordinary -looking  man,  isn't  he?" 

"Yes,  to  look  at  him  you  would 
never  think  he  was  the  famous  Ob- 
vious Adams  of  the  biggest  advertis- 
ing agency  in  New  York.  And  to  tell 
the  truth,  I  can't  see  why  he  is  such 
a  little  tin  god  in  the  business  world." 

"I've  heard  him  speak  two  or 
three  times  at  the  Adleague  meet- 
ings, but  he  never  said  anything 
that  we  didn't  know  already.  He 
seems  to  have  a  lot  of  people  buf- 
faloed, though.  I  confess  he  was  a 
disappointment  to  me." 

It  is  funny,  but  that  is  the  way 
most  outsiders  talk  about  Adams, 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

And  yet  this  same  Adams  has  been 
an  important  factor  in  the  success  of 
more  well-known  businesses  than 
perhaps  any  other  one  man. 

Even  at  this  moment,  while  the 
two  men  were  talking  about  him,  he 
was  making  business  history.  He 
had  turned  the  menu  card  face  down 
and  was  drawing  lines  and  making 
notes  on  the  back.  To  any  one 
looking  over  his  shoulder  the  result 
of  his  work  would  have  been  mean- 
ingless, but  it  seemed  to  please 
Adams,  for  he  nodded  his  head 
earnestly  to  himself  and  put  the 
menu  into  his  pocket  as  the  obse- 
quious waiter  came  to  help  him  into 
his  overcoat. 

Half  an  hour  later  a  telephone  bell 
jingled  in  the  library  of  a  sumptuous 

[3] 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

home  in  an  Iowa  city.  It  rang  a 
second  time  before  the  man  lounging 
in  the  big  mahogany  chair  in  front 
of  the  fireplace  arose  and  picked  up 
the  receiver. 

"Hello!"  he  snapped,  and  he 
scowled  at  the  intrusion.  "Hello! 
Hello!  Oh,  it's  you,  Mr.  Adams. 
I  didn't  expect  to  hear  from  you  so 
soon.  Where  are  you?  Chicago? 
You've  got  a  plan?  You  have? 
Well,  I've  just  been  sitting  here 
thinking  about  it  myself,  and  I've 
chewed  three  cigars  to  a  pulp  trying 
to  figure  out  what  we  ought  to  do 
about  it." 

Then  silence  in  the  sumptuous 
library.  Then  a  series  of  what  sound- 
ed like  approving  grunts. 

"I  see  your  idea.  Yes,  I  think 
they  will  do  it,  all  right!  I'm  sure 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

they  will — they've  got  to.  It's  a 
bully  idea  and  I  believe  it  will  turn 
the  trick!  All  right;  take  the  night 
train  and  I'll  send  my  car  down  to 
the  station  to  meet  you  in  the 
morning.  Good  night." 

For  a  long  minute  the  man  in  the 
library  stood  and  looked  into  the 
fireplace  thoughtfully.  "Now,  why 
in  thunder  couldn't  some  of  us  have 
thought  of  that?  It's  the  most  nat- 
ural thing  in  the  world  to  do,  but 
we  had  to  bring  a  man  clear  from 
New  York  to  show  us.  That  Adams 
is  a  wonder,  anyway!"  And  having 
addressed  these  remarks  to  the  and- 
irons, he  pulled  out  a  fourth  cigar, 
which  he  smoked. 

But  that  is  another  story.  We  are 
beginning  back  end  to.  To  know 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

Obvious  Adams,  and  to  understand 
the  secret  of  his  success,  we  must 
begin  at  the  front  end  of  his  life.  It 
is  interesting,  this  story  of  a  poor 
boy  who  began  life  as  Oliver  B. 
Adams  in  a  little  grocery -store  in  a 
small  New  England  town,  and  has 
grown  to  be  known  everywhere  in 
the  business  world  as  "Obvious 
Adams." 

It  seems  that  Adams  came  of  very 
poor,  hard-working  parents,  that  he 
had  only  a  meager  country-school 
education,  and  that  when  Oliver  was 
twelve  years  of  age  his  father  died 
and  he  started  working  in  a  grocery- 
store.  He  was  a  very  ordinary  sort 
of  boy.  He  had  no  particular  in- 
itiative and  he  seldom  had  any 
particularly  bright  ideas,  and  yet  in 
some  strange  way  business  grew 
Ml 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

steadily  in  that  store,  and  it  con- 
tinued to  grow  year  by  year.  Any 
one  who  knew  old  Ned  Snow,  the 
grocer,  would  tell  you  that  none  of 
the  growth  was  his  fault,  for  he  was 
not  of  the  growing  kind — unless  you 
mean  ingrowing.  Well,  things  ran 
along  uneventfully  until  old  Snow 
was  taken  ill  and  died.  Then  the 
store  was  sold  out  and  Oliver  was 
without  a  job. 

The  next  six  years  of  Adams's  life 
no  one  knows  much  about  but  he, 
and  of  these  years  he  has  little  to 
say.  When  the  grocery-store  was 
sold  out  he  took  what  little  money 
he  had  been  able  to  save  up  and 
went  to  New  York,  where  he  worked 
by  day  in  a  public  market  and  went 
to  night  school  in  the  evenings. 

Then    one    day    something    hap- 

17] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

pened.  Near  the  end  of  his  final 
year  at  night  school  the  principal 
arranged  for  a  series  of  vocational 
talks  for  the  benefit  of  the  older 
students.  The  first  of  the  talks  was 
by  James  B.  Oswald,  president  of  the 
famous  Oswald  Advertising  Agency. 
In  those  days  Oswald  was  in  his 
prime,  and  he  was  a  most  interesting 
and  instructive  talker,  with  a  way  of 
fitting  his  message  to  the  needs  of  his 
hearers — which  was  probably  why  he 
was  successful  as  an  advertising  man. 
Young  Oliver  Adams  sat  spell- 
bound throughout  the  talk.  It  was 
his  first  vision  of  the  big  world  of 
business,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that 
Oswald  was  about  the  most  wonder- 
ful man  he  ever  had  met — for  he 
actually  did  meet  and  shake  hands 
with  him  after  the  lecture. 

18] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

On  the  way  home  he  thought  over 
what  Mr.  Oswald  had  told  of  the 
advertising  business.  As  he  pre- 
pared for  bed  in  his  little  third- 
floor  rear  he  thought  over  the  man 
Oswald  and  decided  that  he  must 
be  a  fine  man.  As  he  pulled  the 
blanket  up  over  him  and  nestled 
down  into  the  pillows  he  decided 
that  he  would  like  to  work  in  the 
advertising  business.  And  as  he 
slipped  off  to  sleep  he  assured  him- 
self that  he  would  like  to  work  for 
such  a  man  as  James  B.  Oswald. 

The  next  morning  when  he  awoke 
the  last  two  thoughts  had  become 
united:  He  would  like  to  work  in 
the  advertising  business — for  James 
B.  Oswald.  The  natural  thing  to 
do  then — to  Oliver  Adams,  at  least 
— was  to  go  and  tell  that  gentleman. 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

Though  the  idea  frightened  him  a 
little,  it  never  occurred  to  him  for 
a  minute  but  that  he  should  do  just 
that.  And  so  at  two  o'clock  that 
afternoon  he  asked  for  two  hours 
off  at  the  market,  that  being  the 
quiet  time  of  day,  and,  after  care- 
fully blacking  his  shoes  and  brush- 
ing his  clothes,  started  out  for  the 
big  office-building  which  housed  the 
Oswald  Advertising  Agency. 

Mr.  Oswald  was  busy,  he  was  in- 
formed by  the  girl  in  the  reception- 
hall  who  had  telephoned  his  name 
in  to  the  big  man. 

Oliver  thought  a  minute.  "Tell 
him  I  can  wait  an  hour  and  ten 
minutes.'' 

The  girl  looked  surprised,  for  people 
were  not  in  the  habit  of  sending  such 
messages  to  the  big  chief.  But  there 

[10J 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

was  something  in  the  simple  direct- 
ness of  the  lad  that  seemed  to  make 
the  message  a  perfectly  natural  one. 

Rather  to  her  own  surprise,  she 
repeated  the  message  to  the  presi- 
dent precisely  as  she  had  received  it. 

"He  will  see  you  in  about  twenty 
minutes/5  she  announced. 

Of  the  interview  itself  James  Os- 
wald used  to  delight  to  tell: 

"In  walked  young  Adams,  as 
serious  as  a  deacon.  I  didn't  recog- 
nize him  as  one  of  the  young  men 
I  had  met  the  night  before  until  he 
introduced  himself  and  mentioned 
our  meeting.  Then  he  went  on  to 
say  that  he  had  thought  the  matter 
over  and  had  decided  that  he  wanted 
to  get  into  the  advertising  business 
and  that  he  wanted  to  work  for  me, 
and  so  here  he  was. 
Hi] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

"I  looked  him  over.  He  was  a 
very  ordinary-looking  boy,  it  seem- 
ed to  me,  rather  stolid,  not  especially 
bright  in  appearance.  Then  I  asked 
him  some  questions  to  see  how 
quick-witted  he  was.  He  answered 
them  all  readily  enough,  but  his 
answers  weren't  particularly  clever. 
I  liked  him  well  enough,  but  he 
seemed  to  lack  alertness — that  little 
up-and-comingness  that  is  necessary 
in  advertising.  And  so  finally  I 
told  him,  in  as  kindly  a  way  as 
possible,  that  I  didn't  think  he  was 
cut  out  for  an  advertising  man  and 
that  I  was  very  sorry,  but  I  couldn't 
give  him  a  position,  and  a  lot  more 
fatherly  advice.  It  was  really  a 
choice  little  speech,  firm  but  gentle. 

"He  took  it  all  nicely  enough. 
But  instead  of  begging  me  to  give 
[12] 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

him  a  chance,  he  thanked  me  for 
the  interview  and  said,  as  he  got 
up  to  go:  'Well,  Mr.  Oswald,  I 
have  decided  that  I  want  to  get 
into  the  advertising  business  and 
that  I  want  to  work  for  you,  and  I 
thought  the  obvious  thing  to  do 
was  to  come  and  tell  you  so.  You 
don't  seem  to  think  I  could  make 
good  and  so  I  will  have  to  set  out 
to  find  some  way  to  prove  it  to 
you.  I  don't  know  just  how  I  can 
do  it,  but  I'll  call  on  you  again 
when  I  have  found  out.  Thank  you 
for  your  time.  Good-by.'  And  he 
was  gone  before  I  could  say  a  word. 
"Well,  I  was  set  back  consider- 
ably! All  my  little  speech  had  been 
lost  entirely.  He  didn't  even  en- 
tertain my  verdict!  I  sat  for  five 
minutes  thinking  about  it.  I  was 

2  [13] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

rather  irritated  to  be  thus  turned 
down  by  a  boy,  so  civilly  but  so  very 
definitely.  All  the  rest  of  the  after- 
noon I  felt  decidedly  chagrined. 

"That  night  on  the  way  home  I 
thought  it  over  again.  One  sen- 
tence stuck  in  my  memory:  'I  want 
to  get  into  the  advertising  business 
and  I  want  to  work  for  you,  and  I 
thought  the  obvious  thing  to  do  was 
to  come  and  tell  you  so.' 

"It  all  struck  me  in  a  heap:  How 
many  of  us  have  sense  enough  to 
see  and  do  the  obvious  thing?  And 
how  many  of  us  have  persistency 
enough  in  following  out  our  ideas 
of  what  is  obvious?  The  more  I 
thought  of  it  the  more  convinced 
I  became  that  in  our  organization 
there  ought  to  be  some  place  for  a 
lad  who  had  enough  sense  to  see 

[14] 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

the  obvious  thing  to  do  and  then 
to  go  about  it  directly,  without  any 
fuss  or  fireworks,  and  do  it! 

"And  by  George,  the  next  morn- 
ing I  sent  for  that  lad  and  gave 
him  a  job  checking  up  and  filing 
periodicals. " 

That  was  twenty  years  ago.  To- 
day Oliver  B.  Adams  is  the  vice- 
president  and  active  head  of  the 
great  Oswald  Advertising  Agency. 
Old  Oswald  comes  to  the  office  once 
or  twice  a  week  and  has  a  chat 
with  Adams,  and  of  course  he  al- 
ways attends  directors'  meetings, 
but  otherwise  Adams  is  the  head  of 
the  business. 

It  all  happened  naturally  enough, 
and  it  all  came  about  through  that 
"darned  obviousness,"  as  old  man  Os- 
wald good-naturedly  characterizes  it. 

[15] 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

Before  Adams  had  been  working 
at  his  checking  and  filing  job  a 
month  he  went  to  his  boss  and  sug- 
gested a  change  in  the  method  of 
doing  the  work.  His  boss  heard 
him  through  and  then  asked  him 
what  was  to  be  gained.  Adams  told 
him  that  it  would  save  about  a 
quarter  of  the  time  and  handling, 
and  errors  would  be  almost  impos- 
sible. The  change  was  simple  and 
he  was  told  to  go  ahead.  After  the 
new  plan  had  been  in  operation 
three  months  he  went  to  his  boss 
again  and  told  him  that  the  new 
plan  worked  so  well  that  a  girl  at 
two-thirds  of  his  salary  could  take 
care  of  his  work,  and  wasn't  there 
something  better  for  him?  He  said 
he  noticed  that  the  copy  staff  had 
to  work  nights,  and  he  wondered  if 

[16] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

they  didn't  have  so  much  work  for 
the  future  that  they  could  start  in 
to  train  up  a  new  man.  The  boss 
smiled  and  told  him  to  go  on  back 
to  his  work.  "You  are  no  John 
Wanamaker."  Back  he  went,  but 
also  he  began  to  write  copy  during 
his  spare  time.  The  copy  rush  was  on 
account  of  a  big  campaign  for  the 
California  Peach  Canners'  Associa- 
tion. Adams  proceeded  to  study 
up  on  the  subject  of  peaches.  He 
thought,  studied,  dreamed,  and  ate 
peaches,  fresh,  canned,  and  pickled. 
He  sent  for  government  bulletins.  He 
spent  his  evenings  studying  canning. 
One  day  he  sat  at  his  little  desk 
in  the  checking  department  putting 
the  finishing  touches  on  an  adver- 
tisement he  had  written  and  laid 
out.  The  copy  chief  came  in  to  ask 

[17] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

him  for  the  back  number  of  a  cer- 
tain paper  that  was  in  the  files. 
Adams  went  to  get  it,  leaving  the 
advertisement  on  top  of  his  desk. 
The  copy  chief's  eye  fell  on  it  as  he 
stood  waiting. 

"Six  Minutes  From  Orchard  to 
Can55  was  the  heading.  Then  there 
were  lay-outs  for  pictures  illustrat- 
ing the  six  operations  necessary  in 
canning  the  peaches,  each  with  a 
little  heading  and  a  brief  descrip- 
tion of  the  process: 

CALIFORNIA  SUN-RIPENED  PEACHES 

Picked  ripe  from  the  trees. 

Sorted  by  girls  in  clean  white  uniforms. 

Peeled  and  packed  into  the  cans  by  sanitary 

machines. 

Cooked  by  clean  live  steam. 
Sealed  air-tight. 
Sent  to  your  grocer  for  you — at  30  cents 

the  can. 

[18] 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

The  copy  chief  read  the  ad  through 
and  then  he  read  it  through  again. 
When  Adams  got  back  to  his  desk 
the  copy  chief — Howland  by  name 
— was  gone.  So  was  the  advertise- 
ment. In  the  front  office  Howland 
was  talking  with  the  president,  and 
they  were  both  looking  at  an  ad 
lay-out  on  the  president's  desk. 

"I  tell  you,  Mr.  Oswald,  I  be- 
lieve that  lad  has  the  making  of  a 
copy  man.  He's  not  clever — and 
goodness  knows  we  have  too  many 
clever  men  in  the  shop  already — 
but  he  seems  to  see  the  essential 
points  and  he  puts  them  down  clear- 
ly. To  tell  the  truth,  he  has  said 
something  that  we  up -stairs  have 
been  trying  to  say  for  a  week,  and 
it  has  taken  us  three  half-page  ads 
to  say  it.  I  wish  you'd  apprentice 

(19J 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

that  boy  to  me  for  a  while.  I'd  like 
to  see  what's  in  him/' 

"By  George!  I'll  do  it,"  agreed 
Mr.  Oswald.  Whereupon  he  sent 
for  Adams's  boss. 

"Could  you  get  along  without 
Adams,  Mr.  Wilcox?"  he  asked. 

Mr.  Wilcox  smiled.  "Why,  yes, 
I  guess  so.  He  told  me  the  other 
day  that  a  girl  at  two-thirds  his 
salary  could  do  his  work." 

"All  right;  send  him  up  to  Mr. 
Rowland." 

And  up  Adams  went  to  the  copy 
department.  His  canned-peach  copy 
had  to  be  polished  up,  but  this  was 
given  to  one  of  the  crack  men,  for 
there  was  need  of  haste,  and  Adams 
was  given  another  subject  to  write 
on.  His  first  attempts  were  pretty 
crude,  and  after  several  weeks  the 

[20] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

copy  chief  almost  came  to  the  con- 
clusion that  maybe  he  was  mistaken 
in  Adams,  after  all.  Indeed,  many 
uneventful  weeks  passed.  Then  one 
day  a  new  account  was  landed  by 
the  Oswald  Agency.  It  was  for  a 
package  cake  which  was  sold  through 
grocers.  The  firm  had  limited  distri- 
bution, but  it  had  been  stung  by  the 
advertising  bee;  it  wanted  to  grow 
faster.  The  company  was  working 
within  a  fifty-mile  radius  of  New  York. 
Before  any  orders  came  through 
to  the  copy  department  some  of  the 
copy  men  got  wind  of  it,  and  Adams 
heard  them  talking  about  it.  That 
day  he  spent  his  noon  hour  looking 
up  a  grocery  that  sold  the  cake. 
He  bought  one  of  the  cakes  and  ate 
a  liberal  portion  of  it  as  his  lunch. 
It  was  good. 

[21] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

That  night  when  he  went  home 
he  sat  down  and  worked  on  the 
cake  problem.  Far  into  the  night 
the  gas  burned  up  in  the  little  third- 
floor-rear  room.  Adams  had  made 
up  his  mind  that  if  he  had  a  chance 
at  any  of  the  cake  copy  he  was  going 
to  make  good  on  it. 

The  next  morning  the  cake  busi- 
ness came  through  to  the  copy-room. 
To  Adams's  great  disappointment  it 
was  given  to  one  of  the  older  men. 
He  thought  the  matter  over  all 
morning,  and  by  noon  he  had  de- 
cided that  he  was  a  chump  for  ever 
thinking  that  they  would  trust  such 
copy  to  a  kid  like  himself.  But  he 
decided  to  keep  working  on  that 
cake  account  during  his  spare  time 
just  as  though  it  were  his  account. 

Three  weeks  later  the  campaign 

[221 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

opened  up.  When  Adams  saw  the 
proofs  of  the  first  cake  copy  his 
heart  sank.  What  copy!  It  fairly 
made  one's  mouth  water!  Preston 
was  famous  for  food-product  copy, 
but  he  had  outdone  himself  on  this 
cake.  Adams  felt  completely  dis- 
couraged. Never  would  he  be  able 
to  write  such  copy,  not  in  a  million 
years!  Why,  that  copy  was  liter- 
ature. It  took  mere  cake  at  fifteen 
cents  the  loaf  and  made  it  fit  food  for 
angels.  The  campaign  was  mapped 
out  for  six  months,  and  Adams 
carefully  watched  each  advertise- 
ment, mentally  resolving  that  he 
was  going  to  school  to  that  man 
Preston  in  the  matter  of  copy. 

Four  months  later,  in  spite  of  the 
wonderful  copy  running  in  the  news- 
papers, both  city  and  suburban, 

[23] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

there  were  mutterings  of  dissatis- 
faction coming  from  the  Golden 
Brown  Cake  Company.  They  liked 
the  advertising;  they  agreed  that  it 
was  the  best  cake  advertising  that 
had  ever  been  done;  it  was  increas- 
ing the  business  somewhat — but  sales 
were  not  picking  up  as  they  had 
anticipated.  At  the  end  of  another 
month  they  were  more  disappointed 
than  ever,  and  finally,  at  the  expira- 
tion of  the  six  months,  they  an- 
nounced that  they  would  discon- 
tinue advertising;  it  was  not  so 
profitable  as  they  had  hoped. 

Adams  felt  as  keenly  disappointed 
as  though  he  had  been  Mr.  Oswald 
himself.  He  had  become  very  much 
interested  in  that  cake  business.  On 
the  night  he  heard  of  the  decision  of 
the  Golden  Brown  Cake  Company 

[24] 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

to  stop  advertising  he  went  home 
downcast.  That  evening  he  sat  in 
his  room  thinking  about  Golden 
Brown  Cake.  After  a  while  he  went 
to  a  drawer  and  took  out  a  big  en- 
velope containing  the  ads  he  had 
written  for  the  cake  months  before. 
He  read  them  over;  they  sounded 
very  homely  after  reading  Preston's 
copy.  Then  he  looked  over  some 
street-car  cards  he  had  laid  out  for 
his  imaginary  cake  campaign.  After 
that  he  assembled  a  new  carton  he 
had  drawn  out  and  colored  with 
water-colors. 

He  sat  and  looked  at  these  things 
and  thought  and  thought  and 
thought.  Then  he  fell  to  work  re- 
vising his  work  of  months  before, 
polishing  it  up  and  making  little 
changes  here  and  there.  As  he 

[25] 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

worked  his  ideas  began  to  develop. 
It  was  nearly  three  o'clock  when  he 
finally  turned  out  his  light  and  went 
to  bed.  The  next  morning  he  went 
to  the  office  with  his  mind  firmly 
made  up  as  to  what  he  should  do. 
At  ten  o'clock  he  telephoned  the 
front  office  and  asked  if  he  might 
come  down  and  see  Mr.  Oswald. 
He  was  told  to  come  ahead. 

At  eleven  o'clock  Mr.  Oswald 
looked  up  from  the  last  piece  of 
copy  for  Adams's  cake  campaign 
and  smiled. 

"Adams,"  he  said,  "I  believe  you 
have  hit  it.  We  have  been  doing 
wonderful  cake  advertising,  but  we 
have  overlooked  the  very  things  you 
have  pointed  out  in  your  plan.  We 
have  done  too  much  advertising  and 
not  enough  selling.  I  believe  that 

[26J 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

with  this  plan  I  can  go  down  and 
get  that  crowd  back  into  the  fold." 

At  three  o'clock  Adams  was  sum- 
moned to  the  president's  office. 

"Mr.  Adams,"  said  Mr.  Oswald, 
as  he  sat  down,  "the  Golden  Brown 
Cake  Company  is  back  with  us,  and 
with  us  strong.  They  say  the  plan 
looks  good  to  them.  So  we  are  off 
for  another  campaign.  Now  I  want 
you  to  take  this  material  up  to  Mr. 
Howland  and  go  over  it  with  him. 
I  have  told  him  about  it,  and  he  is 
just  as  pleased  as  I  to  think  you 
have  done  it.  I  have  told  him  to 
go  over  the  copy  with  you.  It  is 
good  copy,  very  good,  but  it  is 
rough  in  spots,  as  you  doubtless 
realize,  and  Mr.  Howland  can  help 
you  polish  it  up.  Don't  let  this  give 
you  a  swelled  head,  though,  young 

[27] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

man.     It  takes  more  than  one  battle 
to  make  a  campaign.55 

Adams  was  treading  on  air  when 
he  left  the  president's  office,  but 
after  he  had  talked  with  the  copy 
chief  for  an  hour  he  was  back  on 
earth  again,  for  he  saw  that  there 
was  much  to  be  done  before  the 
copy  would  be  fit  to  print.  How- 
ever, his  main  ideas  were  to  be  fol- 
lowed out.  They  all  agreed  with 
him  in  his  contention  that  people 
ought  to  taste  the  cake,  and  that  to 
supply  grocers  with  sample  slices 
wrapped  in  oiled  paper  fresh  every 
day  for  three  weeks,  to  .give  to  their 
customers,  was  a  good  idea;  that  his 
idea  of  showing  the  cake  in  natural 
colors  in  the  street-car  cards  where 
it  would,  as  he  expressed  it,  "make 
people's  mouths  water,"  was  a  good 

[28] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

move;  that  giving  up  their  old  green 
package  in  favor  of  a  tempting  cake- 
brown  carton  with  rich  dark-brown 
lettering  would  make  for  better  dis- 
play and  appeal  to  the  eye  and  the 
appetite.  Some  of  these  things 
Adams  had  learned  back  in  the  lit- 
tle New  England  grocery-store,  and 
they  seemed  to  him  perfectly  natural 
things  to  do.  They  seemed  so  to 
Mr.  Oswald  and  Mr.  Rowland  and 
all  the  rest  when  they  heard  the 
plan,  and  every  one  of  them  won- 
dered why  he  had  not  thought  of 
them. 

Before  the  first  week  of  the  sam- 
pling campaign  was  up  the  sales  had 
begun  to  show  a  substantial  increase, 
and  at  the  end  of  a  month  the  Golden 
Brown  Cake  Company  reported  an 
increase  of  nearly  thirty  per  cent,  in 

3  [29] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

their  business  in  what  was  ordinarily 
the  dullest  month  of  the  year.  And 
that  marked  the  beginning  of  one  of 
the  most  successful  local  campaigns 
the  Oswald  Agency  ever  conducted. 
Yes,  the  copy  was  simple — al- 
most homely,  in  fact — but  it  had  the 
flavor  of  the  old  New  England  kitch- 
en on  baking-day,  and  it  told  of 
the  clean,  sunny  bakery  where  Gold- 
en Brown  Cakes  were  baked.  In 
fact,  it  told  it  all  so  simply  that  it  is 
entirely  probable  that  it  would  have 
been  turned  down  flat  had  not  the 
previous  campaign  failed. 

Several  months  later  there  was  a 
very  important  conference  in  the 
front  office  of  the  Oswald  Advertis- 
ing Agency.  The  officers  of  the 
Monarch  Hat  Company — it  wasn't 

[30] 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

hats,  but  I  dare  not  tell  you  what 
it  was,  and  hats  will  do  for  the  pur- 
pose of  the  story — were  closeted  with 
the  president  and  the  copy  chief. 
Conversation,  sales  reports,  and  cigar 
smoke  were  consumed  in  about  equal 
parts  for  nearly  three  hours.  It 
seemed  that  the  Monarch  Hat  Com- 
pany had  two  retail  stores  in  a  large 
Southern  city;  that  one  of  these 
stores  was  paying,  though  the  other 
ran  behind  steadily.  They  did  not 
want  to  abandon  either  store,  for 
the  city  was  large  enough  to  sup- 
port two  stores,  but  they  could  not 
afford  to  go  on  losing.  Already 
they  had  sunk  hundreds  of  dollars 
in  a  special  advertising  campaign — 
which  made  the  prospering  store 
prosper  even  more,  but  did  not  pull 
the  unprofitable  store  out  of  the  loss 

[31] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

column.  Something  had  to  be  done, 
and  done  quickly. 

The  conference  had  lasted  until 
nearly  lunch-time,  but  nothing  had 
come  out  of  it.  Every  plan  that 
was  suggested  had  either  been  tried 
or  was  impracticable. 

"Well,  gentlemen,"  said  Mr.  Os- 
wald at  last,  "we  have  spent  three 
hours  talking  about  what  ought  to 
be  done,  whereas  it  strikes  me  that 
our  first  job  is  to  find  out  what  is 
the  matter.  Will  you  give  me  two 
weeks  to  find  out  what  the  matter 
is,  and  then  meet  for  another  con- 
ference?" 

They  were  all  hungry;  they  were 
talked  out;  yes,  they  would  agree. 

"What's  your  idea?"  asked  the 
copy  chief,  after  the  crowd  had  left. 

Mr.  Oswald  looked  at  him  quite 

[32] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

seriously.  "Howland,  I'm  going  to 
gamble.  If  I  could  spare  the  time 
I'd  go  down  there  myself  and  in- 
vestigate, but  I  can't.  The  Mon- 
arch people  need  never  know  about 
it,  but  we  are  going  to  send  a  boy 
down  to  that  burg  to  see  if  he  can 
find  out  what's  the  matter." 

"You  don't  mean — " 

"Yes,  we're  going  to  send  young 
Adams.  I  have  a  sneaking  sus- 
picion that  there  is  something  ob- 
viously wrong  in  that  situation — 
something  that  has  nothing  to  do 
with  sales  reports  or  turn-over — and 
if  there  is,  by  cracky!  I'll  gamble 
that  plain,  every-day  young  man  will 
ferret  it  out.  ' Obvious'  seems  to 
be  his  middle  name!  Maybe  I'm  a 
fool,  but  I'm  going  to  try  it." 

"Adams,"  said  the  president,  as 

[33] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

that  young  man  stood  before  him, 
"the  Monarch  Hat  Company  has 

two  stores  in .     One  of  them  is 

paying  and  the  other  is  not.  I  want 
you  to  go  down  there  and  find  out 
— without  asking,  mind  you — which 
of  the  stores  is  not  paying,  and  then 
I  want  you  to  find  out  why.  Get 
some  expense  money  from  the  cash- 
ier and  leave  in  the  morning.  Come 
back  when  you  feel  reasonably  sure 
you  know  the  answer." 

Adams  went.  He  went  directly 
to  a  hotel  when  he  struck  town, 
registered,  and  left  his  grip.  Then 
he  looked  up  the  addresses  of  the 
two  Monarch  stores.  Twenty  min- 
utes later  he  had  found  one  store, 
located  on  the  corner  of  two  promi- 
nent streets,  with  a  prominent  en- 
trance and  display  windows  on  both 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

streets.  The  other  store  he  found 
three-quarters  of  an  hour  later,  right 
on  Market  Street,  the  main  retail- 
store  street  of  the  city,  also  located 
on  a  corner.  But  Adams  was  sur- 
prised, when  he  found  the  store,  to 
discover  that  he  had  passed  it  three 
times  while  he  was  looking  for  it! 
He  stood  on  the  opposite  corner  and 
looked  at  the  store.  It  had  only  a 
very  narrow  front  on  Market  Street, 
but  a  very  large  display  window  on 
the  intersecting-street  side.  He  stood 
thinking.  It  struck  him  that  that 
store  was  too  hard  to  find.  What 
if  they  did  do  heavy  advertising — 
he  knew  of  the  Monarch  campaign 
in  that  city — the  other  store  would 
reap  the  benefit  because  it  was  so 
prominentlyvocated,  even  though 
not  right  on  Market  Street.  Yes, 

[35] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

he  felt  sure  this  was  the  unprofitable 
store. 

As  he  stood  watching  the  store  he 
began  to  notice  that  more  people 
went  up  on  that  side  of  the  street, 
which  meant  that  as  they  approach- 
ed the  store  their  eyes  were  focused 
ahead,  watching  for  the  crossing 
policeman's  signal  to  cross,  and  as 
they  did  cross  the  intersecting  street 
their  backs  were  turned  to  the  big 
side  window.  And  even  those  who 
came  down  on  that  side  of  the 
street  did  not  get  a  good  view  of 
the  window  because  they  were  on 
the  outside  of  the  sidewalk,  with  a 
stream  of  people  between  them  and 
the  store.  He  counted  the  people 
for  periods  of  five  minutes  and  found 
that  nearly  fifty  per  cent,  more  were 
going  up  on  that  side  than  were 

[36] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

going  down.  Then  he  counted  the 
passers  on  the  other  side  and  found 
that  nearly  fifty  per  cent,  more  were 
going  down  on  that  side.  Clearly 
that  store  was  paying  almost  twice 
as  much  rent  for  that  side  display 
window  as  it  should,  and  Market 
Street  rent  must  be  enormous.  Peo- 
ple didn't  see  the  store;  people 
couldn't  find  the  store  easily. 

That  night  he  thought,  figured, 
and  drew  diagrams  in  his  hotel 
room.  His  theory  seemed  to  hold 
water;  he  felt  sure  that  he  was 
right.  The  next  night,  after  having 
studied  the  situation  another  day 
and  obtained  some  rent  and  sale 
figures  from  the  store  manager,  he 
took  a  sleeper  back  to  New  York. 

A  few  months  later,  as  soon  as 
the  lease  expired,  that  store  moved. 

[37] 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

Adams  had  solved  the  riddle.  It  was 
really  quite  simple  when  you  knew 
the  answer. 

"It's  that  everlasting  obviousness 
in  Adams  that  I  banked  on.  He 
doesn't  get  carried  away  from  the 
facts;  he  just  looks  them  squarely 
in  the  face  and  then  proceeds  to 
analyze,  and  that  is  half  of  the 
battle."  Thus  spoke  Mr.  Oswald 
to  the  copy  chief. 

That  was  the  beginning  of  a  series 
of  incidents  that  sent  Adams  right 
to  the  front  in  the  Oswald  Agency 
and  led  eventually  to  his  owning  an 
interest.  There  was  nothing  spec- 
tacular about  any  of  them.  They 
were  simply  horse-sense  analyses  of 
situations,  and  then  more  horse  sense 
in  the  working  out  of  a  plan. 

Came    a    letter — from    a    manu- 

[38] 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

facturer  of,  let  us  say,  bond  papers 
— it  really  was  not  bond  papers,  but 
I  must  not  tell  you  what  it  was,  and 
bond  papers  will  do  very  nicely  for 
the  purpose  of  the  story.  Well, 
came  this  letter  saying  that  they 
were  interested  in  advertising  and 
they  wondered  if  some  man  from 
the  Oswald  Agency  wouldn't  come 
out  to  their  mill  and  talk  it  over 
with  them.  As  it  happened,  the 
day  the  letter  came  Mr.  Oswald  was 
sailing  for  Europe  at  eleven  o'clock. 
The  letter  came  in  the  morning  mail 
and  Adams  just  happened  to  be 
in  the  president's  office  when  he 
picked  it  out  of  the  basket  on  his 
desk. 

"How'd  you  like  to  go  out  and 
talk  to  these  people,  Adams?"  asked 
Mr,  Oswald,  with  a  quizzical  smile, 

[39] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

handing  him  the  letter.  He  liked 
to  try  out  new  combinations  of  men 
and  jobs. 

"Oh,  I'd  like  to,"  said  Adams,  his 
face  lighting  up  with  pleasure  at 
the  thought  of  such  a  mission. 

"Then  go,  and  good  luck  to  you," 
said  the  chief,  and  he  turned  and 
plunged  into  the  last-minute  details 
of  departure. 

Adams  went  the  next  morning. 
The  paper-mill  president  asked  him 
if  he  thought  bond  paper  could  be 
advertised  successfully.  Adams  re- 
plied that  he  couldn't  tell  until  he 
knew  more  about  the  mill  and  the 
product.  He  had  to  have  the  facts. 
He  was  given  a  guide,  and  for  the 
next  two  days  he  fairly  wallowed  in 
paper.  He  found  that  this  mill's 
paper  was  made  of  selected  white 

[40] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

rags;  that  the  purest  filtered  water 
was  used  in  the  making;  that  it  was 
dried  in  a  clean  loft;  and,  most  sur- 
prising of  all,  it  was  gone  over  sheet 
by  sheet  and  inspected  by  hand. 
These  things  weren't  known  in  those 
days,  and  Adams  saw  great  possi- 
bilities for  advertising. 

The  third  day  he  spent  in  his 
hotel  room  laying  out  some  tentative 
advertisments.  These  he  took  with 
him  late  in  the  afternoon  and  went 
to  call  on  the  president.  The  presi- 
dent looked  them  over  and  grunted. 
Plainly  he  was  disappointed.  Adams's 
heart  sank;  he  was  going  to  fail  on 
his  first  selling  trip.  But  not  with- 
out a  fight. 

The  president  rocked  back  and 
forth  in  his  chair  for  a  few  minutes. 
16  Young  man,"  he  said,  finally, 

[41] 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

"every  good  bond  paper  is  made  of 
carefully  selected  rags "  —  quoting 
from  the  advertisement  in  his  hand; 
"every  good  bond  paper  is  made 
with  pure  filtered  water;  every  good 
bond  paper  is  loft-dried;  all  good 
papers  are  hand  inspected.  I  didn't 
need  to  get  an  advertising  man  from 
New  York  to  tell  me  that.  What 
I  wanted  was  some  original  ideas. 
Every  one  knows  these  things  about 
bond  paper." 

"Why,  is  that  so?"  said  Adams. 
"I  never  knew  that!  Our  agency 
controls  the  purchase  of  many  thou- 
sands of  dollars'  worth  of  bond 
papers  every  year,  yet  I  venture  to 
say  that  not  a  single  man  in  our 
organization  knows  much  about  pa- 
per-making, excepting  that  good 
paper  is  made  of  rags.  You  see, 

[42] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

Mr.  Merritt,  we  aren't  any  of  us 
paper-makers,  and  no  one  has  ever 
told  us  these  things.  I  know  there 
is  nothing  clever  about  these  adver- 
tisements. They  are  just  simple 
statements  of  fact.  But  I  honestly 
believe  that  the  telling  of  them  in  a 
simple,  straightforward  way  as  quali- 
ties of  your  paper,  month  after 
month,  would  in  a  comparatively 
short  time  make  people  begin  to 
think  of  yours  as  something  above 
the  ordinary  among  papers.  You 
would  be  two  or  three  years  at  least 
ahead  of  your  competitors,  and  by 
the  time  they  got  round  to  advertis- 
ing, your  paper  would  already  be 
intrenched  in  the  public  mind.  It 
would  be  almost  a  synonym  for  the 
best  in  bond  paper." 

Mr.    Merritt   was   evidently   im- 

[43] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

pressed  by  the  logic  of  Adams's  ar- 
gument, yet  he  hesitated. 

"But  we  should  be  the  laughing- 
stock of  all  the  paper-makers  in  the 
country  if  they  saw  us  come  out 
and  talk  that  way  about  our  paper, 
when  all  of  the  good  ones  make 
their  paper  that  way." 

Adams  bent  forward  and  looked 
Mr.  Merritt  squarely  in  the  eyes. 
"Mr.  Merritt,  to  whom  are  you 
advertising — paper-makers  or  paper- 
users?" 

"I  get  your  point,"  said  the  presi- 
dent. "You  are  right.  I  begin  to 
see  that  advertising  is  not  white 
magic,  but,  like  everything  else,  just 
plain  common  sense." 

And  Adams  went  back  to  New 
York  with  a  contract  for  a  year's 
campaign,  to  be  conducted  as  the 

[44] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

Oswald  Agency  saw  fit.  The  paper 
campaign  was  a  success  from  the 
start.  Yet,  when  it  was  analyzed, 
Adams  had  done  nothing  but  the 
obvious.  In  due  time  Mr.  Oswald 
over  in  Europe  heard  of  Adams's  suc- 
cess in  securing  the  account,  and  in 
due  time  came  a  little  note  of  con- 
gratulation from  the  president,  and 
the  thing  that  puzzled  Adams  was 
that  the  envelope  was  addressed  to 
"Obvious  Adams."  That  name  "Ob- 
vious" spread  all  through  the  or- 
ganization, and  it  stuck.  Then  the 
bond  -  paper  campaign  came  into 
prominence,  and  with  it  Adams, 
and  with  him  the  new  name!  To- 
day he  is  known  among  advertising 
men  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific, 
and  it  is  doubtful  if  more  than  a 
score  of  them  know  his  real  name, 

4  [45] 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

for    he    always    signs    himself    just 
"O.  B.  Adams." 

Nearly  every  magazine  you  pick 
up  shows  the  influence  of  his  ob- 
viousness. In  advertising  Monarch 
Hats,  for  instance,  they  had  always 
been  shown  on  full-length  figures  of 
men,  making  the  hats  very  small 
and  inconspicuous.  "Let's  show  the 
hat,  not  the  man,"  said  Adams,  one 
day  as  he  looked  at  one  of  the  large 
original  photographs  in  the  art 
department.  "If  men  could  see 
such  a  picture  as  this  they  would 
buy  that  hat.  We  lose  too  much 
when  we  reduce  the  pictures  to 
such  a  small  size."  Whereupon  he 
grabbed  a  pair  of  shears  and  sliced 
that  perfectly  good  picture  on  all 
sides  until  there  was  nothing  left 
but  a  hat,  a  smiling  face,  and  a 

[46] 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

suggestion  of  a  collar  and  neck- 
tie. "Now/'  laying  it  on  to  a 
magazine  page,  which  it  nearly 
filled,  "run  that  and  put  your  copy 
in  that  bare  left-hand  corner/5  Now- 
adays you  often  open  a  magazine 
and  find  a  face  almost  as  large  as 
your  own  smiling  out  at  you — and 
you  see  it,  too!  So,  you  see,  Adams 
was  really  the  Griffith  of  the  ad- 
vertising business,  with  his  "close- 
ups."  Both  of  them  merely  did  the 
obvious  thing. 

Adams  also  discovered  that  ad- 
vertisements did  not  always  have 
to  shriek  out  their  message  in  two- 
inch  type.  He  proved  that  people 
would  read  a  four-page  advertising 
story,  set  solid  in  small  type,  if  it 
were  made  interesting  and  dramatic 
like  any  other  good  story.  Quite  an 

[47] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

obvious  way  to  tell  about  your 
business,  too,  when  you  come  to 
think  of  it. 

You  may  be  surprised  to  learn 
that  Adams  is  not  a  particularly 
interesting  man  to  meet  —  rather 
boresome,  in  fact.  He  has  none  of 
the  attributes  commonly  ascribed  to 
genius;  he  is  not  temperamental. 
Since  those  early  days  he  has  been 
through  many  hard  -fought  cam- 
paigns, counseling  here,  directing 
there,  holding  back  occasionally, 
making  mistakes  now  and  then,  but 
never  the  same  one  twice.  He  has 
nursed  numberless  sick  businesses 
back  to  health  and  rosy  bank  ac- 
counts through  his  skill  in  mer- 
chandizing. He  has  helped  busi- 
nesses to  grow  from  loft  rooms  to 
great  plants  covering  acres.  He  has 

[48] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

altered  a  nation's  breakfast  habits. 
He  has  transformed  trade  names 
into  dictionary  nouns.  But,  for  all 
his  experience  and  reputation,  he  is 
rather  uninteresting  to  meet — that 
is,  unless  you  should  catch  him 
some  evening  in  his  home,  as  I  did, 
and  he  should  sit  in  the  comfortable 
living-room  in  front  of  the  fireplace 
puffing  contentedly  on  a  good  cigar 
and  soliloquizing. 

It  was  in  response  to  my  ques- 
tion: "  How  did  you  come  to  acquire 
the  name  'Obvious'?"  that  he  told 
me  some  of  the  incidents  I  have  just 
related. 

"I  wasn't  born  c Obvious,"  he 
chuckled.  "I  had  'Obvious'  thrust 
upon  me  in  the  old  days  by  Mr. 
Oswald.  I  never  stopped  to  think 
in  those  days  whether  a  thing  was 

[49] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

obvious  or  not.  I  just  did  what 
occurred  to  me  naturally  after  I  had 
thought  things  over.  There  is  no 
credit  coming  to  me.  I  couldn't 
help  it." 

"Well,"  I  pressed,  "why  don't 
more  business  men  do  the  obvious, 
then?  The  men  in  your  office  say 
that  they  often  spend  hours  trying 
to  figure  out  what  you  are  going  to 
propose  after  they  have  decided 
what  they  think  is  the  obvious 
thing  to  be  done.  And  yet  you  fool 
them  repeatedly." 

Adams  smiled.  "Well,"  he  said, 
"since  I  had  that  name  wished  upon 
me  I  have  given  considerable  thought 
to  that  very  question,  and  I  have 
decided  that  picking  out  the  obvious 
thing  presupposes  analysis,  and  an- 
alysis presuppose  thinking,  and  I 

[50] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

guess  Professor  Zueblin  is  right  when 
he  says  that  thinking  is  the  hardest 
work  many  people  ever  have  to  do, 
and  they  don't  like  to  do  any  more 
of  it  than  they  can  help.  They  look 
for  a  royal  road  through  some  short 
cut  in  the  form  of  a  clever  scheme 
or  stunt,  which  they  call  the  obvious 
thing  to  do;  but  calling  it  doesn't 
make  it  so.  They  don't  gather  all 
the  facts  and  then  analyze  them 
before  deciding  what  really  is  the 
obvious  thing,  and  thereby  they 
overlook  the  first  and  most  obvious 
of  all  business  principles.  Nearly 
always  that  is  the  difference  between 
the  small  business  man  and  the  big, 
successful  one.  Many  small  busi- 
ness men  have  an  aggravated  case 
of  business  astigmatism  which  could 
be  cured  if  they  would  do  the  ob- 

[51] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

vious  thing  of  calling  in  some  busi- 
ness specialist  to  correct  their  vision 
and  give  them  a  true  view  of  their 
own  business  and  methods.  And 
that  might  be  said  of  a  lot  of  big 
businesses,  too. 

"Some  day,"  he  continued,  "a  lot 
of  business  men  are  going  to  wake 
up  to  the  power  and  sanity  of  the 
obvious.  Some  have  already. 

"Theodore  Vail,  for  instance,  wor- 
ried over  the  telegraph  equipment 
that  stood  practically  idle  eight 
hours  out  of  the  twenty-four,  and 
he  conceived  the  night-letter  idea  to 
spread  out  the  business  over  the 
dull  hours  and  make  more  new 
business.  What  could  have  been 
more  obvious? 

"Study  most  of  the  men  who  are 
getting  salaries  of  upward  of  one 

[52] 


OBVIOUS    ADAMS 

hundred  thousand  dollars  a  year. 
They  are  nearly  all  doers  of  the 
obvious. 

"Some  day  I  expect  to  see  grand 
opera  stop  advertising  deficits;  it 
is  going  to  cease  advertising  opera 
stars,  too — to  be  promptly  held  up 
in  return  by  these  same  stars — and 
advertise  opera.  It  is  going  to  do 
the  obvious  and  advertise  to  the 
people  who  do  not  now  go  to  opera. 
Then  the  balconies  will  be  full  and 
opera  will  pay  for  itself,  as  it  should. 

"Opera  is  going  to  come  to  realize 
that  it  has  a  legitimate  merchandiz- 
ing problem — like  hotels  or  books  or 
steamship  lines — and  that  it  will  re- 
spond to  legitimate  merchandizing 
methods. 

"Why,  I  even  look  to  see  the  time 
when  our  municipalities  will  wake 

[53] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

up  to  the  fact  that  they  are  over- 
looking the  obvious  when  they  allow 
our  great  libraries,  upon  which  we 
spend  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dol- 
lars each  year,  to  run  along  year  in 
and  year  out  only  half  fulfilling  their 
mission,  when  a  paltry  two  or  three 
per  cent,  of  the  total  appropriation 
spent  in  sane  newspaper  advertising 
to  sell  the  library  idea — the  library 
habit,  if  you  please — to  the  people 
would  double  the  usefulness  of  our 
libraries  to  their  communities.  What 
a  wonderful  thing  to  advertise — a 
library!  Or  a  great  art  museum! 

"The  day  will  come,  too,  I  think, 
when  our  railroads  will  get  over  their 
secrecy  about  fares.  They  will  get 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars 
from  people  who  do  not  travel  now, 
but  who  would  if  they  realize  how 

[54] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

little  it  costs  to  travel  comparatively 
short  distances.  They  will  publish 
the  prices  of  their  tickets  from  city 
to  city  in  their  time-tables — not  be- 
tween all  stations,  to  be  sure,  but 
between  the  larger  places.  Now  in- 
stead they  put  their  fingers  to  their 
lips  and  say  in  a  whisper  things  such 
as  'Ssh!  We  charge  an  extra  fare 
on  this  train,  but  we  are  not  going 
to  tell  you  how  much  it  is — and 
you'll  never  guess!  'Ssh!'  Why,  I 
know  a  man  who  lived  in  New  York 
for  five  years,  and  all  that  time  he 
wanted  to  go  to  Philadelphia  to  see 
the  city,  but  he  never  did,  because 
he  thought  it  cost  much  more  than 
it  does.  He  lacked  the  imagination 
to  ask;  but  asking  should  not  be 
necessary.  Some  day  the  railroads 
are  going  to  do  the  obvious  and  ad- 

[55] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

vertise  to  that  man.  And  there  are 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  him." 

At  this  point  Mr.  Adams  looked 
at  the  clock.  Then  he  excused  him- 
self while  he  called  up  his  garage 
and  ordered  his  car.  He  was  leaving 
on  the  night  train  for  Chicago  to 
tackle  a  difficult  situation  that  had 
developed  in  the  business  of  a  large 
client,  a  big  breakfast-cereal  manu- 
facturer out  West.  They  had  sent 
for  the  great  Adams,  medicine-man 
of  business.  He  would  be  able  to 
prescribe  the  remedy. 

As  we  rode  in  to  the  city  in  the 
luxurious  limousine  he  sat  deep  in 
thought. 

I  sat  and  thought,  too.  What  was 
the  secret  of  this  man's  success, 
I  asked  myself.  And  then  I  recalled 
the  little  boy's  composition  on  the 

[56] 


OBVIOUS   ADAMS 

mountains  of  Holland.     He  wrote: 
"THE  MOUNTAINS  OF  HOLLAND" 

"There  are  no   mountains  in  Hol- 
land." 

That   is   the   answer,    I   decided. 
There  is  no  secret — it  is  obvious! 

THE   END 


BOOKS  ON  BUSINESS 


RETAIL  BUYING 
By  CLIFTON  C.  FIELD.      Post  8vo 

RETAIL  SELLING 
By  JAMES  W.  FISK.    Post  8vo 

PRINCIPLES 
OF   SCIENTIFIC   MANAGEMENT 

By  FREDERICK  W.  TAYLOR 
8vo.     Diagrams 

PRINCIPLES  OF  SHOP   MANAGEMENT 

By  FREDERICK  W.  TAYLOR.    8vo 
Diagrams  and  Tables 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS 
NEW  YORK       ESTABLISHED  1817       LONDON 


RECENT  VOLUMES  IN 

HARPER'S  A-B-C  SERIES 


A-B-C  OF  GOLF  By  JOHN  D.  DUNN 

In  this  manual  a  professional  golf-player  and 
teacher  has  incorporated  the  essential  principles  of  his 
teaching  system. 

A-B-C  OF  HOME  SAVING    BY  LISSIE  C.  FARMER 
Filled  with  suggestions  of  a  practical  nature  for 
the  woman  who  wishes  to  increase  her  income  by 
cutting  down  her  expenses. 

A-B-C  OF  VEGETABLE  GARDENING 

By  EBEN  E.  REXFORD 

A  convenient  helpful  little  book  for  those  eager  to 
supply  the  home  table  with  vegetables. 


OF  MOTION  PICTURES 
By  ROBERT  E.  WELSH 

Answers  the  hundred  questions  asked  by  those  inter- 
ested in  this  new  form  of  entertainment. 

A-B-C  OF  CORRECT  SPEECH 
By  FLORENCE  HOWE  HALLJ 

The  aim  of  this  volume  is  to  set  forth  the  best  usage 
with  regard  to  our  mother  tongue,  and  to  state  the 
principles  which  should  guide  our  conversation. 

A-B-C  OF  AUTOMOBILE  DRIVING 
By  ALPHEUS  HYATT  VERRILL 

Written  to  teach  beginners  how  to  operate  an  auto- 
mobile^ and  to  show  those  already  proficient  the  way 
to  avoid  accidents. 

A-B-C  OF  COOKING     By  CHRISTINE  T.  HERRICK 
A  helpful  book  devoted  to  the  first  principles  of 
cookery,  one  in  which  general  rules  are  given  rather 
than  individual  recipes. 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS 
NEW  YORK       ESTABLISHED  1817       LONDON 


RETURN  TO  the  circulation  desk  of  any 
University  of  California  Library 

or  to  the 

NORTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 
Bldg.  400,  Richmond  Field  Station 
University  of  California 
Richmond,  CA  94804-4698 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLED  AFTER  7  DAYS 

•  2-month  loans  may  be  renewed  by  calling 
(510)642-6753 

•  1-year  loans  may  be  recharged  by  bringing 
books  to  NRLF 

•  Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  made 
4  days  prior  to  due  date 

DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 

JAN  2  4  2PQ6  


DD20  6M  9-03 

\ 


vo;    i  Q  A  j  x 

IL*SLEY  LIBRARIES 


<:o^s^t7e^l 


384611 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


